It is only 7:30 AM and already my day has been blessed! My daughter and son-in-law have just left with a pickup truck loaded with construction debris for the dump. By construction debris I mean old, deteriorated sheet rock, tar paper from the garage roof tear-off a year ago, as well as small pieces of rotted, unusable shingles. The junk is now gone. I can't believe it. Hooray.
And to think they did all that work while I was still sleeping. I got up in time to make a pot of coffee for them, then they were off do get their own work done. I am truly blessed.
Saturday was a great day. I continued my blackberry battle along 15 feet of my fence line and won. The berries are cut back, the weeds are pulled, and the grass along the road is mowed. It looks great. The best part is I lost no blood in the process. Two long-sleeved shirts and two pairs of gloves worked wonders.
My garage door is primed! I did that Saturday, too. Now all that is left to prime is the North side of the garage that was cleaned out this morning. The light at the end of the priming tunnel is getting brighter all the time.
Sunday's worship service was good. God's ways of working always amaze me. Pastor started off talking about forgiveness. I had to laugh because I wrote on my blog last week about forgiveness, depression, etc. I was curious about where Pastor was going to go with the topic.
He ended up talking about Jesus' not going to Bethany when Lazarus' sisters sent word that their brother was ill. Jesus did not go until Lazarus had died because God's plan for raising the dead was much greater than the sisters' desire for healing.*
Pastor said that there are times, even when there is forgiveness, that relationships have to die so that God can restore. God is sovereign. His plan is perfect. His timing is perfect. We are the ones who mess things up.
What Pastor said confirmed what my therapist and I had discussed just a couple days previously. Yes, I did go see my therapist about my depression. I put off seeing her because she makes me dig into places I would rather avoid. Anyway, during our time together I had to admit that contact with my husband, whether by letter or in person, impacts me negatively. I won't go into any details now. I am still sorting it all out, but I know this for sure, I need to let a sick relationship die so that God can raise up something new.
Will that be hard? Yes, of course it will. First off, I excel at wanting to make everything OK. In this case, no matter what I do, I can't make it OK. Only God can do that. Only God can do it in the way it should be done. Yes, it will be hard for me to step away.
Secondly, I excel at taking on guilt that isn't even mine to start with. I feel guilty about letting go, but I need to remind myself that letting go isn't doing something wrong. I have nothing to feel guilty about. It is not a failure on my part. In fact, letting go isn't dropping and losing something. It is removing the sickness from my inexperienced hands and placing it into the hands of the Healer. He knows what to do. I don't.
So, that is where I am today. I feel the Lord's leading in this matter, but want to be sure before I do anything final. That is why I am sitting on a letter I wrote to my husband yesterday. I pray for absolute clarity before sending it. Maybe that is a cop out on my part, an excuse for disobedience. I don't know. At least I wrote the letter.
*John 11
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